The Dodos Talk

SFR interviews Meric Long from SXSWXSF band The Dodos.

March 10, 2011, 1:00 am

By Rani Molla

It doesn't always hurt to be off the beaten track. For instance, Santa Fe snags a number of huge bands, including San Francisco's The Dodos, traveling to Austin for South By Southwest, for an oasis amid the high desert. SFR caught up with Dodos guitarist Meric Long for an interview prior to the band's all-ages show at Warehouse 21.

Known for its driving, relentless drum beats, strongly strummed campfire
guitar, confident but restrained vocals, and aloof but occasionally biting
lyrics, The Dodos is a memorable band. It stops in Santa Fe just a day before the release of its newest album No Color. We discuss the new CD, the tour, Miller Chill and more.

SFR: From what I can tell
upon a first hear of your new album No Color, you haven’t done anything drastic
in regard to changing up your sound.

ML: We pretty much try to make the same record every time. We
haven’t really been able to nail down the sound we’ve been going for all these
years just because of the difficulty in the way that our band has to be
recorded. There are certain sounds and qualities of the acoustic guitar or
drums that make it difficult to capture, from a sound engineer’s perspective.
Each time we make a record, we still have this thing we’re shooting for. I
think we got closer on this record.

So it’s not a matter of
you being lazy?

No. I definitely don’t feel like we’re lazy on this record.
We’re kind of addicted to a specific energy that happens when me and Logan play
and a specific thing that happens.We try to veer away at times from what we’ve done in the past, but we
still end up getting back to two over-hyper teenagers who need to get out
teenage angst.

Is it thematically
different?

No. I tend to write about the same crap. It’s chipping away
at the same thing for me. Musically or artistically, there’s always this
specific sound, this specific mood I’m going for, and I’m kind of just wearing
away at the edges.

What is it that you're trying
to get at?

Sonically, there’s a little section of “Don’t Stop,” the
last song on the new record: Toward the end, the song breaks and it goes to an
acoustic guitar, and I think the sound between the drums and guitar, for a
minute there is pretty much what we’ve been shooting for. It’s really strong
finger-picked guitar, really rhythmic with a drum part that basically mimics
exactly what’s going on on the guitar and backs it up. It makes this weird
sound between an acoustic guitar being finger picked and a low tom being hit at
the exact same time. That’s not everything we’re going for, but that’s the best
representation I can point to.

You relieved your
vibraphonist after the album. Why?

We finished the record and recorded a bunch of vibraphone on
it. As we were mixing, we were started pulling things out. The more vibraphone
we took out, the more we realized the sound was heavier and a little more
piercing, and that’s what we were going for. By the time we were finished mixing
there was basically no vibraphone on the new songs. No vibraphone, no
vibraphone player.

You two had toured
with The New Pornographers and now Neko Case sings on approximately half
of your new album. How did that come about?

Pretty naturally. We were on tour together. She came out and
sang on a few songs during our set. Actually, she sang on our last show at Lollapalooza.
Her tour was done but she stayed an extra day and she came and sang. I was
like, ‘What are youdoing for next
few months?’ And she said nothing so I asked, ‘Do you wanna come sing.’ She
said yes and that was it.

I hear you’ve
insisted at playing at W21, an all-ages venue, is this something you two always
try for?

I’ve told our booker to book all ages when possible.

You’ve been known to
play all sorts of venues, no matter how small, is that why you chose Santa Fe
over, say, Albuquerque.

There was no specific reason; it just happened to be the
place. I’ve been a fan of Albuquerque. In the past we’ve had curiously good
shows there. We have soft spot for Albuquerque because we never expected to
have a good show there. From what I know about Albuquerque, it’s a hard place
to play these days in terms of getting people out and venue-wise. I’m stoked
we’re playing Santa Fe. I hear it’s beautiful and it’s not too far from
Albuquerque so I can still get Mexican food from The Frontier on the way back.

Your song “Fool” off
Visiter was used in a Miller Chill commercial. If a song off No Color hawked a
product, what would it be?

Unfortunately, it’s a song recorded during this record that
didn’t make it on but will probably be a B-side. That song is called “So Cold “
and I think that would be perfect for another beer.

Do you really drink
100-calorie light beer with lime?

I tried it afterward and I have to say I love it. It’s
really good�kind of got a salty thing going on. I became a big fan of
Micheladas; it’s basically that without tomato juice.

Do you get paid to
say that?

No, not at all. I didn’t even get my free case of Miller
Chill. I was really disappointed.